DAMMAM — The Ministry of Commerce published the names and details of a Saudi citizen and 10 foreign workers following their conviction of commercial fraud by a court in the Eastern Province. The Criminal Court in Dammam sentenced the citizen, owner of an illegal factory, to one year in jail while 10 Indian and Bangladeshi nationals were awarded with six months prison term each. Fines totaling SR720000 were slapped against the convicts. The court also ruled to shut down their plant involved in the commercial fraud and confiscate and destroy the seized counterfeit products. The citizen and foreigners were convicted of their involvement in running a factory for the manufacture and sale of adulterated tobacco products at an unlicensed plant that operated at a private farm in Qatif governorate. It was found that the owner of the plant and the workers were involved in an unlicensed commercial activity, cheating and manipulating commercial data through the preparation of tobacco and molasses mixtures and packaging them with misleading commercial data in order to sell them in the local markets. The Ministry of Commerce warned that it would continue arrest of violators of commercial regulations, and legal procedures will be taken against them. There are provisions in the Anti-Commercial Fraud Law for penalties of up to three years in prison and fines of up to SR1 million or of both, naming and shaming the violators in two local newspapers at their expense, and deportation of foreign workers who are involved in the illegal practice.
